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A dark, woody space with tables and chairs, though generally not enough of either for everyone to sit in comfort; a counter serving beer and other drinks, along with some fairly basic food; a few cute rustic features – some old pictures, a “real” fireplace. It’s easy to overlook – and to underestimate – the discreet charm of the British boozer.

And yet, for many of us, the pub is still a home from home: a place of solitude or sociability, sometimes both at once; a chance to decompress after work, or even catch up with work (for some years the Telegraph books pages were commissioned, edited and on several occasions written from Davy’s, notionally a wine bar but strongly publike in ambience, in Canary Wharf); a building that’s also a kind of friend.

For more than a decade, the Telegraph has run a weekly column celebrating “Britain’s best pubs”. We’ve done country pubs, seaside pubs, eco-pubs, blowsy Victorian gin palaces, pubs that brew beer for dogs, pubs frequented by fictional detectives, pubs in churches, caves and on post-war council estates.

We have also done foodie pubs – but not too foodie. Partly, this is down to a certain purist tendency – we’re with George Orwell, whose fictitious Überpub, The Moon Under Water, served food that only a hardened veteran of the home front could stomach: “liver-sausage sandwiches”, “a cut off the joint, two vegetables and boiled jam roll”. It’s also because the column generally appears alongside the restaurant review, and the appetite thus surfeited might sicken and die.

An old-fashioned Scotch Egg atThe Cott Inn in Devon

We have tried to cover Wales, Scotland and all four quarters of England. Some writers have a home turf (it’s a quiet source of pleasure to me to find in Arthur Taylor’s dispatches from Lancashire an echo of one of the greatest books about industrial Britain, Mass-Observation’s The Pub and the People); others fit their P2P commitments around peripatetic freelance lives, squeezing in a couple of bevvies and 500 words on the way to conduct an in-depth survey of llama breeders on Ilkley Moor, or interview the Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Our brief to writers is based on a homelier version of Michelin’s criterion for a second star: “vaut le détour”. Would Pub X be somewhere you’d bend your route or change your plans slightly to visit?

'Despite the doom and gloom, the future is bright for pubs...'

The rubric at the top of the column means we’re not aiming to be critical of bad pubs – just raise a glass to good ones. There are plenty of ways a pub can be good. But the feeling induced by a good pub is instantly recognisable – expansive, ruminative, suddenly disinclined to be anywhere else. A tranquil, reflective quality also characterises much of the writing that’s appeared in P2P over the years: we don’t get many Hunter S Thompson-influenced expositions of a madcap Friday-night bender in downtown Scunthorpe, though maybe it’s time we did.

Locals queue for a pint at The Three Horseshoes Inn, Somerset

Nevertheless, our contributors approach the gig from many different angles. My first articles about pubs were about the physical bricks and mortar, as I was doing a column about listed buildings at the time; I’m not at all expert about beer, though I’m broadly in favour of it. But we have several writers who know their onions, notably Adrian Tierney-Jones, Tim Hampson and certified “beer sommelier” Sophie Atherton: we’ve tried, in our way, to stay across the “craft beer” revolution.

Mine’s a pint and a packet of pork scratchings: a number of pubs have been saved by the community Credit:
Haarala Hamilton & Valerue Berry

Pubs thus saved often find themselves transformed into a new kind of community hub, offering pottery sessions, life classes and lectures alongside the traditional beers, wines and spirits. Though, inevitably, many more will fall by the wayside, whether retrofitted as a Tesco Metro or TNT’ed to make way for yet more Luxury Flats. Despite all the doom and gloom, we feel the future’s bright for the pub.

For one thing, the quality is constantly improving (even the wine’s getting better). For another, there have been rumours of the pub’s demise for as long as there have been pubs. In any case, what better respite could there be from hours spent poring over your digital device than going to a real place, interacting with real people – and sipping a pint or two of real ale?

We’ve organised these into five categories – though inclusion in one doesn’t imply a one-trick pub: many will feature both stunning scenery and decent food, or a rich history and a lively atmosphere. Good beer is a given – but landlords who go the extra mile have a category of their own. Cheers!

Keith Miller

Pint to Pint: A Crawl Around Britain’s Best Pubs (Icon, rrp £12.99) is available for £10.99 plus p&p from Telegraph Books: call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

BEST FOR.... CHARACTER

1. The Hand and Heart, Nottingham

“Upstairs is the most exotic smoking terrace I’ve come across since pubs and smouldering nubs parted company in 2006. And between the front bar and the fairy-lit cave is a piano that bursts into life every Sunday under the fingers, and sometimes the toes, of a pianist known as Pete the Feet.” Chris Arnot

2. General Eliott, South Hinksey

“In 2013, two villagers bought the pub and began the long process of resuscitating it.

Reborn: the General Eliott is a thriving village hostelry

Now, once more, it’s thriving: an archetypal country pub, a short walk over water‑meadows (and the main railway line, admittedly) from Folly Bridge in the centre of town.” Tim Hampson. Read the full review here

5. The Crown, Hastings

“Macramé potholder-weaving, leather coin-purse-making, ‘Sunday stories in the snug’, a pub quiz, music and odd sessions such as wild foraging followed by cocktail-making – I wish it was my local.” Alastair Gilmour. Read the full review here

6. The Irwell Works Brewery Tap, Ramsbottom

“ ‘A pony,’ said someone, ‘is Cockney for a fiver.’ Someone else said, no, it was £500; a further opined £25 (‘aka: a Napoleon – Napoleon Bony’). The barmaid settled the discussion by saying firmly that they, the bar staff, called it a shot glass.” Arthur Taylor. Read the full review here

7. The Devonshire Arms, Burton on Trent

“At The Devonshire, you are brought face-to-face with the great attraction of the British pub: warmth, comfort, life and, of course, good beer. Talking of which, my glass is empty – and there’s time for another.” Adrian Tierney-Jones. Read the full review here

8. The Cott Inn, Devon

“The Cott Inn slumps on a gentle slope, in a spruced-up hamlet just across the river from Dartington Hall. It is elongated, cyclopean and slightly wonky, like a sleeping dinosaur. It has been open since the 14th century, but the obligatory markers of antiquity – two inglenooks, copper pans, high-backed settles – are offset with contemporary touches.

Picturesque: The Cott Inn

So those settles, which might easily induce a certain tenor of sobriety, are strewn with Orla Kiely-esque cushions; and there are sparsely elegant flower arrangements in bits of repurposed glassware. Nevertheless, it is as the Platonic ideal of a venerable country pub that the Cott commends itself.

It is made from impeccably traditional materials: the roof is thatch, and at least one wall is cob, a lumpy porridge of clay, straw, blood and other substances.” K.

BEST FOR... BEER

9. BrewDog Camden, London NW1

“As befits a brewery strong on style and ‘edginess’, the décor is stripped-down minimalism: concrete floors and tubular furniture distinctly at odds with the sort of comfortable sofas usually found in an upmarket country inn.

This sort of post-industrial warehouse chic can often be shorthand for coldness, but BrewDog Camden is a hotspot of friendliness. Young people stand lifting their glasses to examine their beers with the seriousness of art experts scrutinising a Schnabel. The Yin to their Yang is provided by the traditional pub types at the bar scanning the incredible beer list.” AT-J. Read the full review here

10. Swan on the Green, Kent

“My chocolate-tinged Goldings Mild was not in fact all that mild at 4% abv. ‘If we made it any weaker it would go off in the barrel,’ explained the brewer.” Christopher Hirst. Read the full review here

12. The Grill, Aberdeen

“Solid-looking boozer slotted into a granite terrace on Aberdeen’s Union Street; mahogany panelled walls and a hand-carved gantry above the bar; great beers as well as a magnificent selection of whiskies.” AT-J

14. White Swan, Twickenham

“It turns out that Naked Ladies is a beer, made by local microbrewery Twickenham Fine Ales and named after a group of marble statues frolicking around a nearby fountain. They promise a ‘good body and luscious aroma’ according to the blurb on the pump-clip.” CA. Read the full review here

17. The Crooked Billet, Leigh-on-Sea

51 High Street, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex SS9 2EP (01702 480289)

“For £5, I buy a half pint of shell-on prawns, a polystyrene cup overflowing with cockles, four smoked sprats and a rollmop herring. I settle beside a wooden table with my pint, and watch as the sun dances on the thick brown silt beyond. Time and tide may wait for no man, but here it seems to have stopped still.” AG. Read the full review here

18. The Three Stags, London SE1

“Not only are the herbs and vegetables served in the pub grown within a two‑mile radius of it; they are delivered by bicycle within an hour of having been plucked from the ground. Oh, and there’s a beehive on the roof.” CM. Read the full review here

20. Manor House Inn, Northumberland

“A chalked sign in the doorway reads: ‘Forage, shoot, grow or breed – have you got something we need?’ I estimate the pint and hot beef sandwich clutched by the chilled fisherman at the bar represents a couple of nicely weighted brown trout.” AG. Read the full review here

21. The Three Horseshoes Inn, Somerset

“I watched people tuck into beer-battered fish and chips or chomp on a swirl of plump Cumberland sausage, nestled on a mountain of fluffy mash.

Somerset style: The Three Horseshoes in Batcombe

"Home-smoked haddock Florentine offered a lighter option. Local suppliers are used as much as possible, to the extent of reaching out to Batcombe’s allotment addicts. A note on the wall declares: ‘Allotment amnesty – if you have a surplus from your veg patches bring them in and swap for a pint or two.’ ”AT-J. Read the full review here

BEST FOR...NATURE

Credit:
Joe Bird

22. The Jolly Fisherman, Craster, Northumberland

"Two male eider ducks are fighting as their female prize preens. Beyond them, the waves are up the sides of the harbour walls. We have a pint of Mordue Workie Ticket in our hands and are somewhat smugly basking in what must be one of the most perfectly positioned beer gardens in England, in lovely Craster.

Cosy: The Jolly FishermanCredit:
Chris Watt

The gate next to us leads on to St Oswald’s Way – the Northumberland Coast Path; those trudging along it from Hadrian’s Wall to the south or Holy Island to the north cross directly into the grounds of ‘The Jolly’. It must be a welcome relief to be told that ‘muddy boots and dogs are welcome.’ ” AG. Read the full review here

24. The Marisco Tavern, Lundy Island

“They do not want, nor need, to be bothered by the demands of email, social media or other trivialities that detract from life’s simpler pleasures – a pint of beer, chatting with your spouse or friends or gazing at the stunning views out to sea.” Sophie Atherton. Read the full review here

25. The Staff of Life, W Yorks

“The stroll from the car park gives time to savour the view, with Eagle’s Crag jutting dramatically over the skyline and thundering streams of water cascading down the hillside through the trees into the River Calder.” AT. Read the full review here

BEST FOR... HERITAGE

Credit:
Joe Bird

26. West Kirk, Ayrshire

58a Sandgate, Ayr, KA7 1BX, South Ayrshire (01292 880416)

“Traditionally, the pub is the place you visit after church. At this elegantly vaulted establishment, however, the church (well, former church) is the pub. What’s more, the West Kirk retains more than a few of its ecclesiastical features.

It has a raised wooden pulpit, a first-floor balcony for worshipper overspill, plus a soaring, pointy-spired frontage that clearly signposts the way to heaven.

History: West Kirk is a former churchCredit:
Stuart Nicol

Not to mention a massive suspended light fitting that hovers over the congregation of quaffers like an outsized flying saucer. There are, however, certain elements that you don’t get in the average apse. Like the wall-to-wall carpet, and the 50-yard bar, with outlets that dispense beer rather than holy wine.

And booth seating, as well as open-plan tables out in the middle of the room, where the Reverend can keep an eye on you. No question, though, that as well as being tall, this is also a broad church.” Christopher Middleton. Read the full review here

28. The Harp, Powys

“When you’re huddled around its log fire, in a high-backed wooden pew, with flagstones under your feet and hops hanging down from the ceiling, you could imagine that you are a Welsh wool merchant, circa 1600, stopping overnight on your way to Hereford market.” CM. Read the full review here

29. The Minerva Inn, Plymouth

“This tiny Plymouth pub was once the place where unfortunate souls had the king’s shilling slipped into their pints, then found themselves hackled through a secret passage and ‘impressed’ on to a Royal Navy ship waiting on the nearby Barbican dockside.” Audrey Gill. Read the full review here

30. The Bell Inn, Somerset

3 Market Street, Watchet, Somerset TA23 0AN (01984 631279)

"It was in this waterside tavern that the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge is said to have begun The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, while walking in the Quantocks with William Wordsworth. CM." Read the full review here